Rusk followed Iraiah over the debris and up into a vent, but he did stop and turn around wondering if they could rescue Gedresial. Maybe Rusk didn’t know the guy all that well, but he was still an ally, and Rusk’s sense of heroics wouldn’t let him abandon him.

“Wait, we have to make a detour.”

“What detour?”

“The guy they dragged away. We can’t leave without him.”

“Are you nuts? We only have a limited window here.” Iraiah kept on crawling through the cramped space with the stone pressing in and in, and Rusk wondered whether or not he would actually be able to follow her all the way anyway.

“I’m going back for him.” Rusk turned around and crawled through dust and the air nearly choked him. The dust hadn’t settled from the collapsed wall, and the dungeon was dark and full of things to trip over or slip on or become impaled by. He went cautiously but as quickly as he could without injuring himself. And then he noticed that Iraiah was crawling along behind him, grumbling something about how it was so not worth detouring, and yet detouring anyway. When Rusk reached a particular bend, she yanked him in another direction.

“This way, stupid. If you wanna get to the execution grounds before they do we gotta go this way.”

Rusk followed after her once she climbed over him cumbersomely yet in a very skilled manner, and wondered how Mandy even knew this person. Then Mandy’s voice came back through the Elva to him. She told him she was okay but communication would have to shut down permanently. He thought her a quick thanks, glad she was okay, and told her to do what she had to. That he was with Iraiah. The connection went dead.

But now that they weren’t deep in the dungeon Rusk could feel the Elva pulsing, and when he reached inside it and asked for the Elva Bow, it delivered. He couldn’t pull the Dragons Knock, seeing as that wasn’t technically part of the Elva and had a will of its own, but he could certainly pull an Elva Arrow or two no problem. So he did, and felt a lot better being armed when he and Iraiah plopped out of a ventilation shaft into a corridor made of white stone that pressed against Rusk’s senses like gravity.

Iraiah winced. She could feel it too. “This way.”

They ran. Rusk knocked the Elva Arrow as they went. And luckily too, because at that exact moment a guard came round the corner, and did a double-take. Apparently he had just been coming around in order to assess damage, but now that he saw prisoners, or prisoner and sneak anyway, loose, he had to figure out what to do about them all on his own. He raised his spear and Rusk could swear he heard the guy gulp. Unprepared. Rusk fired the Elva Arrow right into the slit in his mask, felling him.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Nice shot,” said Iraiah. Rusk noticed she put two knives back in their holsters, having decided not to use them once she realized Rusk had it covered. “Mandy teach you to shoot?”

“You could say that.”

Around the next corner was Gedresial, and he was lying on the ground at the foot of the guard who had dragged him off twitching. With clenched teeth Rusk ducked back for cover behind the wall and knocked another Elva Arrow.

“How’d they get weapons in here?” asked one of the guards by Gedresial, alarmed.

“How’d half the wall blow out?” said the other one sarcastically.

Rusk heard their footsteps quicken closer. Quick shots then. He rolled his shoulder across the corner of the wall and drew in one fluid motion, taking care of one of them and glancing down at the motionless Gedresial while he was at it.

Iraiah handled the other guard with some strange martial arts move Rusk had never seen before. It was all scrappy and unpredictable, and she didn’t even use her knives. At least not until the very end when she pulled one to slit the guard’s throat.

Rusk tried to think whether they’d called for backup or not.

“That your friend over there?” asked Iraiah as she scoped out the rest of the corridor. “Better make it quick, we’ve got company.”

Rusk ran to Gedresial and crouched over him. He was breathing, thank the Elva, but he wasn’t doing too well otherwise. Every time he twitched Rusk could feel the wrongness in his limbs, the unnatural way his bones worked against each other, and then Rusk knew. The necromancer had done something to him, something Rusk hoped was reversible. But they didn’t have time to dwell on what it was now. Now they had to move. The guards had indeed called for backup, and a whole brigade of metallic footsteps and the laughter of the necromancer came from the other corridor.

Iraiah scrambled backward, and a horde of undead soldiers of all nationalities swarmed her. When she swore, it was in the language of the slums, and very colorful. She moved like a whip sprinting back and countering whichever weapons came her way with efficiency, but Rusk knew they didn’t have a chance in this tight space with all these necromancer puppets after them.

“We gotta run!” He stowed the Elva Bow and Arrows and hoisted Gedresial across his shoulders.

Their retreat was a mad scramble back through the ventilation system, and on the way Rusk cut up his thighs. He had to change the position he held Gedresial in, and eventually, thankfully, he woke up and regained some mobility.

“Leave me,” said Gedresial. “That necromancer, the sorcerer, he did something. I don’t know what I am anymore.”

“Shush,” said Iraiah, who was not far behind and who was also dealing with whoever chased them with deliberate skillful moves with her knives.

“Save your breath,” said Rusk. “We’ll figure it out.”

Gedresial grunted and they all kept moving.